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What Happens If ???

woodya

New member
Joined
Aug 28, 2021
Messages
5
Hello all. I am a newbie to this board and to guitar building. I do have a 42 year career as an electrician specializing in controls so I know my way around wiring diagrams and circuits. I am at the end of my first build, a single cut Junior sporting a Korina body, a Cherry neck with a Purpleheart fret board. On Seymour Duncan Antiquity P-90 and a twist. A Lollar Charlie Christian neck pup. While trying to figure out what components I want to use and which wiring scheme I got to thinking what would happen if you kept the (-) separate from the ground and the shield throughout ? Then it dawned on me that wouldn't matter because it would get grounded at the output jack, right. Then I thought, well what happens when you switch a pick up out of phase. You are just reversing the winding, right? Which brings me to my question. Is there an actual right and wrong way to wire a pick up? Other then one wire has more windings on the outside of the coil and the other has more on the inside of the coil, Is there a difference in sound or tone depending which side you ground?
 

DutchRay

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 15, 2015
Messages
872
Sounds like a cool guitar!

As far as I understand electronics, you can't switch a pickup out of phase unless it has multiple coils. You also don't reverse the coil.

To get an out of phase sound from a 2 pickup guitar, the magnetic polarity needs to be opposite to get the out of phase sound when both pickups are engaged. The sorta same sound can be had by switching ground and signal on one of the pickups, but this can also lead to extra noise.

try a forum search for Out Of Phase (or OOP) and peter green mod, and you find more detailed info.
 

PaulD

Active member
Joined
Jun 25, 2007
Messages
673
what would happen if you kept the (-) separate from the ground and the shield throughout ?

There is no -ve, the signal from a guitar pickup is AC. Some pickups such as original style Gibson humbuckers have a single core shielded wire where one end of the coil is connected to the centre conductor and the other to the shield. Others have the coil wires separate from the shield (or in some cases such as Fender single coil pickups there is no shield). In all cases one end of the coil has to be connected to ground otherwise there will be no circuit an no output.
 

DutchRay

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 15, 2015
Messages
872
It has nothing to do with how many coils a pickup has, both single coil and humbucker pickups can be out of phase. They can either be magnetically out of phase where one pickup's magnet is reversed or electrically out of phase where one pickup's wiring is reversed. Some info on the subject here https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/latest-updates/pickup-polarity-and-phase-made-simple
Sure, I meant a (normal) pickup cannot be out of phase with itself. You need two pickups engaged to get the out of phase effect.
 

somebodyelseuk

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 10, 2020
Messages
454
You've a screen, a hot and a cold...
Screen grounds the metal cover/baseplate. To allow phase switching it's necessary to separate the cold from the screen/ground wire and keep the screen grounded, otherwise when you switch the pickup's polarity you turn the base/cover in to a live aerial and lots of noise and humming ensues...
Twin coil pickups with four conductors can be wired multiple ways - coils in or out of phase, series or parallel coils etc...
 
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